The Final Four Days
I didn’t leave Bedoues until 9:15 as I had to drop off the caravan key was impossible as I had to drop off the caravan key in reception.
There were four days left to get to Ales and day one looked easy enough, a gentle stroll from the caravan to Florac, then a long, gentle climb to Cassagnas, about 13 miles.
The old bridge at Florac, needs a lick of paint.
Some days turn out to be harder than expected, this one was easier. The walk to Florac was a gentle stroll down the Tarn valley, through woodland clothed hills n early spring foliage down to Florac, through that lovely town and then up the valley of the Mimente, a tributary of the Tarn.
This was delightful walking, a gentle ten mile climb, the first half of which followed old tracks through the woods. I’ve no idea how old the track was, but it was well graded and had obvious been well constructed some time in the past. Given that Stevenson mentioned tracks like this, they could be well over 200 years old and certainly predate the motor road by a long time.
By lunchtime I’d reached St Julien d’Arpon, a tiny cluster of houses. Here I left the woodland paths and picked up an old railway track all the way to Cassagnas.
It’s always a pleasure to walk along old railway lines, the walking is easy and the gradient gentle. This old railway walk was made more poignant by Stevenson’s mentioning that he met railway engineers who were surveying these hills.
Track of the old railway heading to a tunnel, with the River Mimente on the right.
The path made full use of the old railway infrastructure, over bridges and through cuttings and tunnels following the course of The Mimente upstream, cliffs on the left and the Mimente canyon on the right until it reached the hamlet of Cassagnas.
The campsite at Cassagas was unique in that it was right on the path; not surprising seeing that the path followed the old railway and the campsite was attached to a large gite with bar and restaurant that had been converted from the old station buildings. I took full advantage of this by booking an evening meal.
The Cassagnas gite and campsite, converted from the old station buildings
The food was as good as the other hotels I’d eaten in, possibly not quite as sumptuous as the feast in the table d’hote but still very good.
While I was eating someone said something about the rain and I looked out the window, it was chucking it down, a thick heavy curtain of water, this was bad news.
When you’re camping and it starts to rain you’re faced with a dilemma. The tent, especially if it’s a small one is cramped, at best damp and generally cold; so do you stay in the tent and try and make yourself comfortable, or do you head to the comfort of a bar?
If you stay in the tent you may be uncomfortable but you can keep an eye on your little home, make sure it’s set right and watch out for damp patches, drips or even leaks. If you go to the bar, you may be warm and comfortable but you don’t know what’s happening to your little home.
So, sit tight, finish the meal, or scuttle back to the tent?
Ultimately, the answer depends on how much wine has been drunk, and how much is left in the bottle. Some logic, or wishful thinking can be applied; the tent is small but a good one, it can easily handle mountain storms, there is no wind and I checked its setup before I left. It should be fine and if I leave the warm bar I’ll get wet and introduce my damp clothes in the relative dryness of the tent.
With this logic/wishful thinking I was able to spin diner out for a couple of hours but by nine o’clock it was getting dark and the rain had just about stopped so I made a damp dash to the tent.
The very wet tent at Cassagnas.
It wasn’t rainy in the morning which was a blessing, although the clouds were down almost to the campsite, me and most of my gear was a bit damp but ok, while the tent was absolutely sodden, which is about the best you can hope for in this situation.
The day was going to be an easy ten miles from Cassagnas to St-German-du-Calberte through what turned out to be lovely woods and with improving conditions.
Damp woods but improving conditions.
The GR70 trail follows, for the most part, the route taken by Stevenson but that follows no particular logic, other than he had an interest in the history of the Camisards and visited various places associated with them and the “War of the Camisards” which had flared up across the Cevennes in the early 18th century (more of this later).
It follows that the modern route has no underlying logic or reason for existing except to follow relatively closely Stevenson’s erratic route as it meanders, from one old village village to another.
However the villages, while they may be several hundred years old are relative new comers to the French countryside but it’s often hard to spot evidence of the country’s more ancient inhabitants. However, about two hours after leaving Cassagnas I came across two sites that hinted of the ancient inhabitants of this area.
At the top of a long climb, the trees opened out to a wide, open view point, a high, rocky place with wonderful open views across the wooded hills. There was also a small sign which said, “Menhir and Ancient Sacred Site”.
Menhir, Cist and me (the dark shape to my right, particularly obscured by a clump of heather is the cist.
The menhir, a single standing stone was, in my limited experience, unique. Menhirs, by definition are single columns of stone, varying from a meter or so up to more than 10 meters (although really huge ones are very rare) the one I’d found was only about five feet high, but instead of being a simple lump of the local rock was a single piece of white quartzite.
A few meters away, was the sacred site, a small, stone lined burial chamber, known as a cist, it was about four feet long by two wide and would have held a body, laid to rest, curled in the fetal position. Most probably it would have been capped by stone slabs and been covered by a mound of some sort. It was almond certainly Neolithic and as the Neolithic came to France much earlier than Britain, could be anything up to 8,000 years old.
It was an amazing thing to see, and I found myself wondering about who had been laid to rest in such a spectacular position and with such a splendid white quartz menhir to mark their grave.
Suitably impressed and with my spirits raised by the unexpected discovery I strolled on St Germain, arriving about two.
The campsite was completely deserted when I arrived, although a sign said it was open, so I found a good pitch and got the tent up, letting it dry out in the now scorching afternoon sunshine. Eventually the owner turned up and charged me €10 for the campsite, including access to a phone charging point at the end of the bar and €9 for a bottle of beer.
I thought this was a bit of expensive but it was a local brew and as the bottle had no label I’m pretty sure it was home brew. It was also delicious, a rich blond colour with taste reminiscent of Leffe. It was also a 75cl bottle and with most bars selling a 25cl glass of something like 1664 for about €3, the home brew was a bargain.
The pitch I’d chosen was perfect, level, near the facilities and with an eastern aspect that should have seen me bathed in early sunshine, ideal for drying and dew or condensation. This plan was rudely shattered at about two in the morning when a huge thunderstorm rolled in, so much for having a dry tent in the morning 🤬.
Home brew beer and tomorrow’s hills, the calm before the storm.
The next day, St-Germain-de-Calberte to St-Jean-du-Garde was the penultimate day, a long 16 miler. Things started badly, within ten minutes of leaving the campsite the thunderstorm returned and I was soaked. I actually quite enjoy walking in a thunderstorm, especially in the mountains; as you walk you can track its progress as it moves around you by the counting the seconds difference between the flash of lightning and the associated rumble of thunder.
I could tell the storm was moving up the valley I was walking out of (bright flash of lightning and 1-2 seconds before a deafening roar of thunder overhead) before going around behind me (faint flicker of lightning and 8+ seconds to a faint rumble).
Not only is a thunderstorm a lot more exciting to walk through than ordinary rain, they generally last only a couple of hours before dissipating. By half past ten the sun was out and I was drying off nicely, a process I completed at the campsite by spreading any still damp items around me as I sat in the St-Jean-du-Garde campsite bar.
Sign in the bar, I really want a copy.
As I mentioned, Stevenson was interested in the history of the Camisards who flourished in the Cévennes area of France, so a bit of history.
During the 16th century the Protestant Reformation swept across Europe and with church and state being closely associated, many kings saw the rise of Protestantism as being a form or rebellion and of course the Church of Rome was dead against the whole concept of reformation, so in many areas the secular and religious authorities tried to put the new faith down, often with considerable brutality.
In France this led to a series of conflicts which are now generally called ‘The French Wars of Religion’ (1562 to 1598), these only came to and end when the leader of the Protestants, one Henry of Navarre, turned Catholic and became the King of France. He did however manage to end the wars and proclaimed’The Edict of Nantes’ in 1598 which guaranteed freedom of conscience and most civil rights to French Protestants.
This edict was rescinded by Louis XIV on 1685, which triggered a fresh round of conflict; in the region I’ve been walking through this became known as the ‘War of the Camisards’ and it was this conflict and the history of the Protestant Camisards that drew Stevenson to this area.
The final day of the walk, from St-Jean-du-Garde to Alès was through the heart of the Camisard country, and it was very noticeable that the villages don’t have Catholic Churches but something that is marked on the map as “temple”; that is a Protestant churches. It seems that every today the French don’t consider a Protestant church a proper church but some sort of heretical, heathen structure.
After two weeks walking, this final day’s walk should have been a relatively easy stroll but it was a lot harder than I’d expected due to the dire state of the paths. For well over half the 16 miles the paths were simply washed out stream beds, unpleasant steep tracks of very rough, loose stones; every foot step had to be considered and chosen with care to avoid a twisted ankle or worse.
It took me a ridiculously slow nine hours to do little more than 16 miles but despite the conditions underfoot there were highlights, some of the paths snaked along the top of a long sinuous ridge through old woods that were cool in the afternoon heat and which occasionally gave brief glimpses of the hills all around and eventually the town of Ales and the end of the walk.
Ales in the distance.
And then, after a fast decent I stepped off a small wooded track, onto a tarmac road, strolled round a corner and the adventure was over.
Crossing the Gardon d’Ales river at the end of the Stevenson Trail!
And it has been an adventure, in many ways harder than LEJOG, then I had the fantastic support of Sandra and Arthur, the comfort of the camper van and the luxury of carrying only a light day pack most days. On this trip I’ve been carrying 11-12kg of camping and walking gear plus food, as well as living in a small tent most nights and relying on very poor schoolboy French to make myself understood!
But I do seem to have got a bit better.
I first read Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, “Travels with a Donkey”, something over 50 years ago, arriving in Ales saw an old ambition completed, something ticked off the bucket list and definite feeling of, “what’s next?”. At the moment I’ve no idea but I hope it will include Sandra and the hounds.
On that note I’d especially like to thank Sandra for all the support on encouragement she gave me before and during this trip; speaking to her every night was a great morale booster, especially when I was cold damp and a bit miserable.